


Blood and Bagels

by antivillain (museofspeed)



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen, Mild Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museofspeed/pseuds/antivillain
Summary: A trial by brunch between October Daye and three firstborn.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 50
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Blood and Bagels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! May yours involve less bleeding than October's inevitably will.

I never knew what I was going to find when I opened the Luidaeg’s door. Sometimes it looked like it had when I first had visited, like a garbage heap crossed with a shipwreck. Sometimes I saw it the way it really looked, with tasteful oceanic decorations and comfortable furniture. One memorable time, it had been a bounce house like at a children’s fair, and only the murder in the Luidaeg’s eyes made it clear just how much I didn’t want to know.

Somehow, that had been less surprising than what was in front of me now. I stood in the doorway and stared, squeezing the top of the bagel bag in one hand and staring. The Luidaeg was sitting on her couch (the messy horrible version), drinking tea with Captain Pete—Amphitrite—and my _mother._ Amandine the liar. The woman responsible for my childhood trauma, plus a lot of the more recent trauma too. Suffice to say we didn’t get along.

The Luidaeg crossed the room faster than my eyes could follow her and put her hand on my arm before I could draw my knife. “Toby,” she said, her smile all sweetness while her eyes screamed at me to not fuck this up, “I know you’re not dumb enough to draw your tiny little knife when you’re in a room with not one, not two, but three Firstborn. Even you wouldn’t survive that.”

“But Mom—”

“Is my guest and will be obeying my rules.” She let go of my arm. “As will you.”

Reluctantly, I let my fingers relax and drop to my side. And to think I had thought this would be more fun than whatever May wanted to drag me to for a Yule celebration. “Please tell me this isn’t why you had me pick up bagels.”

“You brought _bagels_?” Pete’s expression lit up. She crossed the room and threw an arm over the Luidaeg’s shoulder. “I take back everything I said before. Toby’s all right.”

“What did you say before?” I asked.

The Luidaeg shook her head and took the bag. “Come in, Toby. The faster we get started, the faster we’ll be done.”

“I don’t see why she’s here anyway.” Amandine was still lazing on the couch, not bothering to look at me. “She’s just a changeling.” 

I gritted my teeth and didn’t respond. Nothing new from her. I’d given up on being good enough for her long before she’d kidnapped my fiancé and May’s girlfriend. Now, she would never be good enough for _me._

The Luidaeg smiled, showing her unsettlingly sharp teeth. "This 'just a changeling' has done more in the few decades she's been alive than you've done in all of your centuries. Fuck off, Amy."

Amandine crossed her arms and pouted, like the fact that someone was telling her off was so unthinkable that she didn't even want to contemplate it. Knowing her, it seemed likely. 

"Not that I want to agree with Mom about anything, but why _am_ I here?" I followed the Luidaeg as she went over to the table and set a clean tablecloth over the rickety kitchen table and put out four plates. 

She reached into the bag and took out the cream cheese and lox I'd brought and set them out. Then she nodded at the seats around the table. "We're having brunch."

"Brunch." I sat down in one of the chairs, hard enough that it stung for a moment. "Luidaeg, please tell me you didn't just trick me into brunch with my mother."

The Luidaeg jammed her knife into the cream cheese and spread it on one of the bagels. She handed it to me. "Eat your bagel, Toby."

Pete walked over and reclined in a chair as easily as if it were her own personal throne. "It's Yule," she said. "Believe it or not, this is a Yule celebration."

"Yule," I echoed, still blinking. In all my discussions with May about what, if anything, we’d do to mark the holiday, no one had said anything about the world's most awkward brunch being an option. I wondered if it was too late to go to Arden’s party instead. A fancy dress would be less torture than this.

From her place on the couch, Amandine let out a laugh that _should_ have come out mean and tittering, but still managed to sound melodious and lovely. "She doesn't even _know_.”

"Shut it, Amy," Pete said. "Look, the thing is, you've met a lot of Fae. You might have noticed? Not all the brightest bunch." She glanced over at Amandine. "Some of them have all the wit of a box of rocks."

"I mean, yes." I pointedly did _not_ look at my mother. “What's that got to do with brunch?"

"Brunch is just what's going to make this tolerable." The Luidaeg took a big bite of bagel and started chewing, speaking around her food. "The point is, disguises are great, but they're not all that protects us. If they were, we'd be screwed. Especially with _camera phones._ "

Pete leaned forward, looking intrigued. "Phones have cameras now?"

Sometimes, I remembered just how incredibly young I was compared to the Firstborn. Instead of responding, I leaned forward on my elbows. “So it’s Yule, and humans should have discovered us ages ago. What do these things have to do with each other?”

“There are certain… other protections in place.” The Luidaeg pressed the tips of her fingers together, her mouth wound into a tight frown. “Set up by Mom, Dad, and Titania back in the day. It helps… _encourage_ humanity’s natural tendency to ignore things that don’t make sense. Like a Don’t-Look-Here for all of Fae.”

“And you want me here for it.” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m definitely not _that_ good at illusions.”

“I told you,” Amandine sang from the living room. 

“Can I run her through with my sword?” Pete asked. “Please, Annie. It’d be so funny.”

“Tempting,” the Luidaeg growled. “But she’d just pout even more.”

“You’re probably right.” Pete turned towards me. “The ritual needs the blood of Maeve,” she gestured at the Luidaeg, “the blood of Titania,” she pointed at herself, “and the blood of Oberon. That’s you.”

“But.” I frowned. “You’re _firstborns._ I’m a _changeling._ Wouldn’t my mother’s blood be better?”

Amandine opened her mouth to reply, but the Luidaeg held up a finger. “Answer that, and I’ll rip out your tongue.” Amandine shut her mouth with an audible snap. The Luidaeg turned back to me. “Blood strength isn’t only in its purity. You of all people should know that. Your mother may be Oberon’s child in body, but you’re his child in soul. You have the blood of a hero. To give the ritual full power, it needs both.”

“...oh.”

“Eat your bagel,” the Luidaeg said again. “You lose too much blood as it is.”

Brunch could have been worse, but I’m not really sure how. Maybe if Mom had joined us instead of sulking on the couch. Maybe if we’d had Evening instead of Captain Pete. Maybe if I’d forgotten the lox. The Luidaeg seemed to be enjoying herself at least. The way she always did when she was around her siblings and no one was trying to kill each other. She really did love them, even the terrible ones, like my Mom and Blind Michael. It was almost enough to make me not want to punch Mom in the face. Almost.

But it ended too quickly, and the Luidaeg whisked our plates away to the kitchen. Amandine drifted over, taking her place and refusing to look at me, as though I were beneath her notice. I pressed my lips together and didn't say anything. Pete pushed her way in between us and flashed me a wicked shark smile. She held her hand out as the Luidaeg approached.

I eyed it. “This is gonna involve biting, won’t it?”

The Luidaeg just laughed and took Pete’s hand, biting into her palm and letting the blood drip to the table. She did the same with my hand and Amandine. Then she tore into her own palm. If I didn’t know better, I would have worried about bloodstains, but if blood could have stained the Luidaeg’s furniture, it would have happened long ago. 

I looked around the table. “What do we do now?”

“Shh,” Pete said. She nodded towards my mother. “Let her work.”

I hadn’t had the opportunity to watch my mother work blood magic in a long time. Despite my anger, I couldn’t help being interested as I watched. The blood and roses smell of her magic rose as she worked with an elegance that took my breath away. I was pretty great at blood magic, but I wasn’t anywhere near on her level. Not surprising, considering she had centuries of practice and the privilege of being not just full blooded, but a _Firstborn_ on top of that. I knew that, and knew I was probably still the second best blood worker in all of Faerie despite that, but I couldn’t help feeling like a bumbling amateur next to her.

She chanted in a language I couldn’t understand, then with a flick of her wrists, let the spell snap. I felt an electric feeling in my veins for just the briefest of seconds, and then it was gone. So was the blood on the table. 

Amandine looked around the table, her expression twisted into a smirk that should have been ugly, but wasn’t on her. When no one seemed inclined to praise her work, she huffed and swept towards the door. “This has been _fun,_ Annie, see you next century.”

“Not if I see you first,” I muttered. The Luidaeg shot me an amused look. I turned towards her and raised my eyebrows. “That’s it? It’s over?”

“It’s over.” The Luidaeg stepped away from the table and turned towards Pete. “Thanks for helping out, Petey. I could have done it without you, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it much.”

Pete gave the Luidaeg an amicable punch in the arm and a lopsided smile. “I know I’m the only one of Titania’s children you can stand.” Her expression softened. “Don’t be a stranger. One of these days, we’ve got to spend time together when the future of Faerie isn’t at stake.”

“We’re playing Scrabble next weekend,” I said. They both turned to look at me. I shrugged. “What? It’s a multiplayer game.”

Pete smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “You are very different from your mother.”

I gave her a half-smile back. “I try.” The closest I could come to thanking her without stepping over the line. 

She nodded and gave a half wave as she went towards the door Amandine had left from. I was only a little surprised when it opened out onto a ship in the middle of the ocean as opposed to San Francisco’s darkened streets. That left me and the Luidaeg alone. 

I turned towards her. “You could have warned me.”

“Would you have come?” She busied herself cleaning up the remaining bagel detritus on the table. Not that it looked any cleaner, but that was just an illusion. I knew better. 

“Of course I would have.” I gave a wry smile. “As far as unpleasant things I’ve done for Faerie go, this doesn’t even make the top 10. I barely bled at all.”

“I know. Though it still counts as bleeding. I guess I owe Quentin twenty bucks.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you… _betting_ on me?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want me to answer.” She turned back towards me. “Look, Toby, I know what your mother did to you. I know _everything_ she’s done to you. I don’t take asking you to be in a room with her lightly. But you came. Just like you always do. For that… thank you. It doesn’t wipe out all your debt, even if I wish it did. But it’s lessened it.”

I shivered. It wasn’t the first time she’d thanked me, but it didn’t stop feeling weird. So I just nodded. “You got it.” I flashed her an awkward thumbs up. “Um. Anything else you need before I leave?”

The Luidaeg shook her head, looking away with a sliver of a smile. “Good night, Toby. See you next week.”

I left her apartment feeling a little like I’d swum through a hurricane.

All considered, it also didn’t make the top 10 weirdest visits to the Luidaeg’s I’d had. But it came close. Top 20 for sure.


End file.
